Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 5.djvu/72

TANAOLEES. by the Afghans of Swat and Bijour rose to such a pitch, that the Emperor Akbur dispatched a considerable army under his foster-brother, Zein-ood-deen Koka, and Rajah Beerbul Singh, his constant companion and beloved friend, which, having defeated the Yoosufzyes in the plains, pursued them into the defiles of the Mahabun and Black Mountain. There, unable either to advance or retreat, the whole army was massacred almost to a man, and with it both the commanders, whose loss was deeply deplored by the great emperor. In other localities the emperor's troops inflicted severe losses on the Afghan mountaineers; but the fearful catastrophe of Swat and Bijour was never redeemed. Since then the same tribes have maintained their hereditary courses, almost, it may be said, without intermission; and these lawless and turbulent spirits have in turn assailed every successive Government of the Punjab. The Sikhs often suffered severely, but maintained their ground, though they never ventured to attack Swat, or to traverse its stupendous defiles and dense forests. It remained for the English, their successors, to do that, and with success.

In the year 1852, important discoveries were made at Patna, in Eastern Bengal, showing an intimate connection between the Wahabee fanatics, the disciples of Syud Ahmed, and the Afghan tribes on the Swat and Bijour frontier. Wahabeeism Avas openly preached at Patna, and collections of money and arms were secretly forwarded by regular agents, through the British territory to Sittana, which was the head-quarters of the Wahabees of the north-west. Some precautions against outbreak were made, but they did not deter the fanatic tribes from attacks upon British subjects, and, in 1858, a force of 5,000 men was dispatched against them under Sir Sydney Cotton, which destroyed Sittana, and for a time repressed the frontier outrages. The Mussulman fanatics were, however, by no means subdued; their new settlement at Mulka became more formidable than the former one of Sittana; money, men, and arms were supplied in larger portions from Bengal and other portions of British territory, and zeal for the "holy war" was more than ever active among the Wahabees, and those who sympathised with them. From 1861 to 1863 their renewed outrages had reached such a pitch as to be no longer endurable, and their territory was invaded in the month of September by a force of 7,000 men under Sir Neville Chamberlain, which advanced by the Umbeyla pass into the heart of the Mahabun, or great forest, of the Black Mountain. Some of the tribes who had professed loyalty now wavered, though the Tanaolees remained faithful; the religious head of the Swat clan declared against the British, and, unable to advance or retreat, the force, for a time, was in imminent danger of a catastrophe like that which had destroyed the army of the Emperor Akbur. While this condition of the war existed, the Supreme Council, to whom applications for reinforcements came daily, were on the point of directing the force to withdraw at all hazards, when the opportune arrival